Battle Bus is a group blog written by the Telegraph's team of election reporters, bringing you news, gossip and analysis from a cliffhanger campaign.

Nick Clegg tells of his time as Prince devotee

Political news junkies may have missed the brilliant Mick Brown's interview with Nick Clegg in Saturday's Telegraph magazine. Did you know the Lib Dem leader once wrote a magic-realist novel, practised transcendental meditation for five years, and had a passion for the singer Prince?

On the campaign trail, he said: "I wasn’t what you'd call a groupie, but I did actually spend a whole year – 1990 I think – in Minneapolis, following him around while on a fellowship at the University of Minnesota. He comes from there. He used to try out new songs in bars and clubs, and I would go wherever I'd heard he he was going to be.

"Once I spent all night drinking in a bar waiting for him before eventually giving up and going home. And of course then I heard he'd turned up at 1 or 2 am and played the best gig anyone had seen.

"I think he's gone slightly off the boil now. But at his height – and when I was that age – he was very clever, very funky and different. I don’t listen to him much any more. It was my Prince phase."

I also asked Mr Clegg's spokeswoman whether he had been tempted to return to meditation (or yoga, Alexander Technique, etc) to escape the stresses of the election campaign.

"Absolutely not," she said, surprisingly emphatically. "It was something he did in his 20s, when he was able to be more self-centred. He has kids now and simply doesn't have the time."

Nor has Mr Clegg had another go at being an author (though cruel commentators might suggest that his second work of fiction is due to be published tomorrow at 9.30am). However, he did reveal that he is currently reading The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald. For a politician often described as bland, in an age of obsession with pop culture, this is a (slightly) brave choice. The book centres on Fritz von Hardenberg, the brilliant 18th century German intellectual who became the Romantic poet Novalis. He has a love affair with a 12-year-old-girl, who later dies from tuberculosis.